


The Bishop-Parekh Mess-Around

by Ashling



Category: New Girl
Genre: Avoiding arranged marriage by marrying someone else, Comedy, F/M, Friends and family being way too involved in wedding planning, Friendship, Gen, Shippy if you Squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-12 12:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19945987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: Winston's prank is going way too far, as usual, and Cece finds herself enjoying it.





	The Bishop-Parekh Mess-Around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [innie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/gifts).



> Dear innie,
> 
> SHENANIGANS!
> 
> Love,  
> [your author]

It was nighttime at the bar, and Cece was typing furiously on her phone. Winston was wearing a shirt with an intricate pattern of red bears frolicking across a turquoise sky and fluffy yellow clouds, and Cece was wearing an expression of pure disgust.

After a few minutes, Cece put her phone away with an expression of finality.

Under normal circumstances, Winston might’ve dealt with Cece’s rage more diplomatically, like, _Everything okay, babe?_ But he’d been drinking.

“Whazzat?” he said.

Cece grunted. It was definitely a rage grunt. She, too, had been drinking. 

“Ooh,” Winston said sympathetically. He passed her what remained of his Saucy Sally, and she downed it. 

There was one long moment of sympathy, and although Winston had no idea what he was offering sympathy over, Cece appreciated it.

Abruptly, she said, “And the thing is, you know, I’m so pro-murder. You know? It’s like, great, Priya aunty, you murdered your husband, probably, allegedly.” Cece waved her hands to emphasize the allegedly.

Winston made an encouraging noise.

The bartender gave them a weird look.

“But like why, why, why choose this time to come visit me? Like why can’t you visit one of your good nieces, or go on a vacation to Bali, or, I don’t know, go see one of your own daughters! You have your own daughters!”

“Absolutely,” said Winston. “So many daughters.”

“Only two, actually.”

“Still.”

“Yeah, exactly.” Cece pointed at Winston. “Exactly. Still.”

“So,” said Winston, “you’re gonna need to hide your vibrator.”

Cece groaned in anguish and put her head down on the bar.

“Cece, it’s okay. Look, I’ll set a phone reminder for you. _Hide the vibrator, 11:30am.”_ Winston reached into her pocket, took out her phone, typed in her password, and did. Then, when Cece’s head didn’t rise: “Babe?”

“I tried to get a loan to start my modeling agency yesterday,” wailed Cece, “and they wouldn’t even give me a little one. They said my credit was too bad. And now Priya aunty is coming, she’ll be here on Wednesday, and she’s gonna be like, where’s your fiancé? And I’m gonna be like, sorry I was lying about Arun, I don’t have a fiancé, not even a boyfriend, not even a white boyfriend. And—and—I lost the extra batteries for my Hitachi.” She began to cry in earnest.

“Oh, babe.” Winston gave her a big hug.

“Babe,” Cece sobbed.

“Babe.” Winston patted her back. “Let it all out.”

“Babe.”

“Hey,” said the guy sitting next to them. He was a tall, spindly man with a disturbed look on his face. “Can you take your roleplay somewhere else?”

“Sir, I am a _police officer_ —”

  
  
  


Cece blinked muzzily. 

“Am I dead?” she said.

“No, you’re hungover.”

Cece looked around. Winston’s bedroom, complete with the horrific scifi mural on the wall. Winston, sitting next to her, texting with maniac speed. Different shirt, this time. A print of a thousand tiny moose thundering across a coral plain.

“Hey,” said Cece.

Winston kept on texting.

“Hey!” She hit his arm. “Did we have sex?”

He pulled a face. “No, go back to sleep. Like I’d have sex with you when you were that drunk. ‘Did we have sex.’ Headass.”

“Listen, Bishop, I am in your bed with my socks on. It’s a possibility!”

“You leave your socks on for sex?” 

Cece groaned, pulled the covers over her head, and went back to sleep.

  


BING BING BING BING—

Cece flailed for her phone in a panic, finally smacking it and snoozing the alarm more by luck than skill. Then she squinted at the screen.

_REMINDER: Hide the vibrator._

Memories started flooding back. Priya aunty. Oh, god.

“Drink some water,” said Winston, from across the room. 

“Mmh.” Cece waved a hand at him dismissively, but found the glass of water on the nightstand and chugged the whole thing. Then she sat up and looked over at Winston, and shrieked.

Same Winston, same shirt with the tiny moose. But there was a woman sitting next to him who had on a long black dress and a white collar-ish thing. She had rosy cheeks, and twinkling dark eyes.

“Sorry for startling you,” she said.

“Ah…” 

“Yes, I’m a nun.”

“Right,” said Cece slowly.

“This is Sister Emma from sixth grade,” said Winston. 

Cece stared. “ _You’re_ Sister Emma?”

“Best prankster of all time,” said Winston.

“Okay,” said Cece, “so you’re the one to blame for Winston here being absolutely, uncontrollably bonkers on every prank occasion.”

“Everyone has their God-given gifts,” said Sister Emma. “I just like to encourage their cultivation.”

“She’s here to help us with the mess-around.”

“What mess-around?” said Cece nervously. Bits and pieces of the previous night were beginning to float back to her now, and none of them promising.

Winston pointed to Cece’s right. There, pinned to the wall, were three big posterboards covered in magazine clippings, hand-written notes, and glitter. Across the top of the middle posterboard was scrawled, “Marriage: The Biggest Mess-Around Of All.”

Cece squinted. “What the hell is that?” 

“Moodboard for our wedding. We made it last night.”

Upon further inspection, the left moodboard did have the word HALLOUMI printed on it in Cece’s handwriting, accompanied by several pictures of cheese, none of which were actually halloumi.

“I do love halloumi,” she said.

“Sorry to bother,” said Sister Emma, “but there’s a showing of Hobbs and Shaw at three and I promised Sister Audrey that I’d give her a ride. Can we speed things along?”

“Yeah,” said Winston. “Listen, Cece—”

The glass of water had kicked in, and Cece’s brain was working. “Fake marriage before Priya aunty comes to town, lots of pictures, have to go on honeymoon, and so I can make my cousin Danny take her. And then everyone will stop bothering me about getting married.”

“Exactly,” said Winston.

“I’ve got some papers you need to sign and then I’m off,” said Sister Emma.

Cece looked back at the moodboard. On it was a picture of a milkshake, scribbled over in blue highlighter, a suit of armor, lots of assorted leaves, and an upside-down salt shaker in the shape of a whale.

Just then, her phone alarm went off again. _REMINDER: Hide the vibrator._ This time, Cece hit _stop_ instead of _snooze_.

“Let’s do it,” she said.

Winston cheered.

  
  


“Okay!” said Jess, when all five friends were assembled in the living room. “Evening status update. I’ll go first.”

“Wait a second,” said Schmidt, “I have lodge a complaint. Again, I don’t see why Jess gets to be in charge.”

“You think you should be in charge?” said Jess.

“Well, yeah.” Schmidt looked around, as if it should be obvious.

“Explain the _well_ in that _yeah_.”

“Uh-oh,” murmured Cece to Winston.

“I wish I had some popcorn,” said Winston.

“Jess, it’s cute that you have a binder,” said Schmidt, “but at the end of the day, you’re not qualified. I have made sales pitches all over America--”

“Here and one at a conference in West Virginia,” said Nick.

Schmidt glared. “Whose side are you on?”

“I’m just saying.”

“Anyways, I have a business degree, and it’s my job to literally sell things to people that are fake. ‘Oh, buy this machine that chops vegetables, when you use it your husband will love you again! Oh, buy this truck, it maks your dick seem two inches bigger! Oh, you need this skin cream so you won’t be ugly!’ That’s like my job! Of course I’m more qualified to pull off a fake wedding than you.”

“Wait, should we be talking about how AssStrat is pretty amoral?” said Cece. “Like I just realized, that’s a thing.”

“I’m just saying, it’s not even Virginia-Virginia,” said Nick. “Call me when you’ve done a sales presentation in Virginia-Virginia. Then maybe I’ll be impressed.”

“HEY!” Jess yelled. She got up on the coffee table, heels clicking on on the wood.

“Are those Michael Kors?” said Cece.

“What?” Jess looked down. “Yeah. I got them 30% off.”

“Love that red on you.”

“I was just going to say that myself,” said Winston. “Great minds, babe.”

Cece beamed. “Babe!”

“Can you stop?” put in Schmidt. “The wedding hasn’t started yet. You don’t need to pretend to like each other.”

“But we do like each other,” said Cece, cutting her eyes at him.

“Not like you want to play tonsil hockey, though.”

“But maybe I _do_ want to—”

Jess cut in. “Guys, can we focus?” She put on her Miss Teacher voice. “I promise, if we focus and get our work done, then we can play a game.”

“Ooh, what kind of game?” said Nick.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out. Now, I do have a wedding venue. I called up Fawn Moscato and she got us a last-minute reservation of the Hinkley Pavilion at the park. Rented forty-eight chairs for the occasion, and they’ll be delivered the morning of.”

“Only forty-eight?” said Winston.

“It’s a fake wedding.”

“But then it’ll seem like we don’t have any friends?”

“How many friends do you have, Winston!”

“Well, there’s you guys,” he said, “and Coach, and my cousin Lisa—”

“Cousins don’t count,” said Schmidt.

“—and Aly from work, and David from work, and Victor from work, and, and, uh…”

Everyone looked at Winston.

He pivoted. “Jess, did you get a cake?”

“I did.” Jess flipped through her binder to show them the receipt. “I ordered a cake from Easton’s. Three tiers, two chocolate icing on chocolate cake for Cece, and one buttercream on lemon pound cake for Winston. My friend Claire is also going to be catering, friends and family discount.”

“Is there gonna be halloumi?” said Winston.

“There’s gonna be halloumi,” Jess confirmed. “Cece, did you find a photographer?”

“Yes,” said Cece. “Greg shot me for a Nowak Car Dealership ad once, and he says that as long as he can eat unlimited cake and we’re willing to pretend we’re all friends with him, he’ll take as many photos as we want.”

“Great. Schmidt, how are the invitations and social media campaign?”

“Hashtag WinCe Wins, hashtag love is real, hashtag marriage is forever—”

“That feels a little pointed,” said Cece.

“Does it?” said Schmidt.

“Wince?” said Jess. 

“It’s pronounced ‘win-see.’ Like Win, from Winston, and Ce, from Cece.” 

“Right, we all got that, but it’s spelled W-I-N-C-E.”

“I guess.” Schmidt threw his hands in the air.

“You’re just jealous that I’m the wedding planner.”

“ _Now_ who needs to focus?”

“You know what?” Jess threw her hands in the air, mimicking Schmidt. “Whatever. Does it look like a credible wedding? Are people going to show up? We need to give Greg the Cake Boy something to work with here.”

“I have thirty-seven RSVPs,” said Schmidt.

“Fine.”

“And I have the wedding march.”

Everyone groaned. 

“Words can’t describe how much I hate EDM,” said Winston.

“I used to like it,” said Cece, “before Schmidt ruined it for everyone forever.”

Schmidt pulled out his phone. “Knowing full well that you peasants have no appreciation for the sophisticated Swedish sounds of Avicii, I did include a backup option.”

“If this sucks, I’m just going with Mendelssohn,” said Jess.

“What’s that?” said Cece.

“Dum dum DUM, dum, dum dum dum dum dum DUM, dum-dum-dum, dum-dum.”

“Oh, right, that one.”

“Here it is.” Schmidt played the song on his phone. “The theme song to Succession.”

“This is what you want to play while Cece’s walking down the aisle?” said Jess. “It doesn’t sound like she wants to marry him, it sounds like she’s a trophy wife who’s going to assassinate him on their honeymoon and then take over the world, but also she’s a gangster, and she likes jazz.”

“I dunno,” said Winston, “I kind of love that.”

“Me too,” said Cece.

They beamed at each other.

“Okay,” said Jess. “Winston, how’s it going on your side?”

“My whole family is fine with a fake wedding. I told them it was for insurance purposes, and they were all in immediately. But only Cousin Lisa can make it, cause everybody else is still mostly living in Chicago.”

“Mostly?” said Cece.

“We don’t talk about Chris.”

“Oh, right. My bad.”

“It’s no problem.”

“Well,” said Jess, “I think we’ve got it all covered. Sister Emma is gonna officiate, everything’s set. I called Brian Covington from the Weather Channel and made him swear on his own mother’s grave to me that it wouldn’t rain tomorrow.” She closed her binder with a snap. “This is fun! This is like one of those twenty-four hour plays I used to put on in high school.”

“Technically,” said Winston, “Cece and I started planning last night. So it’s more like a forty-eight hour play.”

“Same difference. Okay, everybody, get some sleep.”

“Wait a second,” said Nick. “I was promised a game.”

“Seriously, Nick?”

“You said if we got our work done, we’d play a game. Work, game. We did the work. Did the work. Now’s the game.”

“Nick, you didn’t do any work.”

“My work was to pick up dinner from Marco’s Pizza and not get in the way. Did the work! Got the pizza! Where’s the game?”

“Oh my God,” Jess sighed.

“I mean,” said Cece, “It is my last night as a free woman. I feel like I might deserve a bachelorette party. I feel like...Babe, do you feel it? I feel some coming on…”

“Oh, yeah,” said Winston. “Like a breeze coming off the coast…”

They said it together. “Great American!”

At this, Nick cheered wildly, and even Schmidt perked up. Jess couldn’t resist.

“Okay,” she said. “One round. But we’re all in bed before eleven. Big day tomorrow.”

  
  


“Priya! Is everything okay? It’s—god, it’s one in the morning.”

In the background: _“Abraham Lincoln! Abraham Lincoln! GIVE ME HABEAS CORPUS BACK!”_

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t send you an invitation because we were going to have such a small wedding, and I didn’t know you were in town then, I thought you’d still be tied up with...with family matters…”

_“All right! It’s pin the tail to the Andrew Jackson! Whoever wins gets half of this taco!”_

“No, of course not! I’m sorry, it’s been hectic around here, with all the planning. No, I’m not pregnant! The reason we had to...I mean...Aaron’s a policeman, and it’s a terribly important job, and he only get time off rarely, so we had to time it just right to go on our honeymoon…”

_“You have failed to get enough votes! Shame! Shame! CHUG CHUG CHUG!”_

“It’s my bachelorette party, aunty. No, no! No strippers.”

_“Knock knock, who is it? Harriet Tubman and her army of bad bitches!”_

“Of course we’d be happy to have you! But you don’t need to go to all that trouble…”

_“Time for the gauntlet of lobbyists! I’ll be the agriculture lobby, I’m gonna go get that corn, no, someone pass me the succulent. No, not that one. The other one. The one in the polka-dotted bowl...”_

“But aunty, wouldn’t you rather save up your airline points to go visit one of your daughters, or take a vacation?”

_“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, are you okay? Did you hit your head?”_

“That’s...very generous of you.”

_“Time out, time out. Government shutdown, essential employees only.”_

“Let me know when your plane is scheduled to arrive, and we’ll come pick you up. Okay? Love you, aunty. Bye.” Cece hung up and turned around.

Winston was sitting on the floor, holding his head, with everyone sitting around him in various states of concern and drunkenness.

“Are you _trying_ to kill my future husband?” Cece demanded.

“No!” said Nick, with the face of a three-year-old caught with a bag of chocolate chips in his room.

“I only gauntleted with a pillow,” said Schmidt. 

“I tripped,” said Winston, very sadly.

Jess was already on her way to get an ice pack.

“Aww, babe.” Cece knelt down next to him. 

“What if I have brain damage?” Winston said. “And all our kids have brain damage?”

“That’s not how that works,” said Cece soothingly.

“But Cece, what if they’re really, really dumb?”

 _Thump!_ Everyone turned to see Jess sprawled on the floor, ice pack in hand.

“I tripped,” she said.

Winston began to cry.

  
  
  


The pawn shop owner gave them a big, goofy grin, revealing two golden teeth.

“You know,” he said, “I was gonna wish you luck on getting married, but you two seem so—” He clenched his fists enthusiastically. “—right for each other.”

“Thanks,” said Winston cheerfully.

“Thanks,” said Cece dryly.

“That’ll be twenty-nine dollars and fifty cents.”

They paid for their two wedding rings and Winston’s one mood ring, and then left.

“You know,” said Cece, “We’re actually pretty great at this.”

“Maybe a little too great?” said Winston.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, I’m having fun and all, but a shotgun wedding shouldn’t be this easy. Especially not a fake shotgun wedding.”

“Maybe we just work well together.”

“You know what? Maybe we do.”

They smiled at each other, and then Cece’s phone went off.

“Hi?” she said.

“Where are you?”

“Priya, oh my god.” She grabbed Winston’s arm.

“I am waiting at the airport!”

Cece frantically checked her texts. “What time did you arrive?”

“Two hours ago!” 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

“You said you would come pick me up!”

“But I didn’t know what time your flight was going to be.”

Priya snorted. “Excuses, excuses.”

“Okay, are you at LAX right now?”

“Yes!” 

“We’re on our way.”

Determined to minimize contact between Priya and Schmidt, who was sure to say the wrong thing, and even more determined to minimize contact between Priya and Nick, who was sure to let the secret out, Winston and Cece spent the rest of the day frantically driving Priya around L.A., showing her all the tourist traps they could, until the fateful hour arrived.

Everything went as well as could be expected. Schmidt’s classy choice of music was not long enough, and the next song on his playlist was indeed an Avicii song that clearly had the words “pound of weed and a bag of blow” in the opening. Nick ended up a carrot cake from the bakery Astons rather than the ordered cake from the bakery Easton’s, and then tried to make up for it by getting one of his dad’s old racetrack buddies to lend him a horse that Winston could ride in on, which, according to Nick, was “a nod to Cece’s heritage.” Except it wasn’t a white horse, it was high-strung bay thoroughbred that tried to run away at every opportunity. Even Jess made a mistake in forgetting to get vegan and gluten-free catering options for Cece’s model friends, whose rage increased with their hunger and who could only be appeased by aggressive dance battles at the reception. Sister Emma, for her part, was disappointed that she was not given the job of DJ, and went about passive-aggressively giving people business cards that read “Emma Brown, DJ, nun, practicing lesbian, and presidential candidate.” But these mishaps only served to convince Cece’s aunt that it was indeed a real wedding. 

Or maybe she was convinced by the wedding toast that Winston made.

"I know it's time for Schmidt or Nick to say something," he began. Schmidt had notecards. Nick looked terrified. "But I just wanna say that I am so, so proud to be your husband, Cece."

"Aww, babe."

"Babe!"

"Babe."

"Babe, you are most fun person I know and the most scary person I know. And I work with criminals all day."

"Hell yeah, she's scary!" shouted Jess, who had consumed perhaps slightly too much wine in response to wedding planner stress.

Cece grinned.

"But most importantly, you're one of my best friends. No matter what happens, you're always willing to help. Like, this one time when Furguson..."

Nick was making cut-off motions frantically.

Winston chuckled. "But that's, that's too long of a story. Basically, Cece, you're loyal, you're smart, you're ambitious, you're honest, and you're hot as hell. I love hanging out with you." He looked her in the eyes. "And I love you."

The pavilion erupted in cheers.

Two months later, when Priya aunty was back in New Jersey and life had gone back to normal, Cece and Winston happily making Fancy Brunch in Cece’s apartment, when they were unexpectedly added to a text group with someone named Pranklin Delano Roosevelt.

Cece: Who is this?

Winston Bishop: Sister Emma, that you?

Pranklin Delano Roosevelt: [image attached: an actual marriage certificate with Cece and Winston’s names on them]

Pranklin Delano Roosevelt: GOTCHA!


End file.
